Can Coconuts Kill?

According to The Straight Dope, the widely-held belief that 150 people are killed by falling coconuts every year is based on some pretty flawed (if non-existent) research.

The director of the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File, George Burgess, said in 2002 that, "Falling coconuts kill 150 people worldwide each year, 15 times the number of fatalities attributable to sharks." But when questioned admitted this figure came from a press release for British Club Direct, a travel insurance firm.

The Club Direct release cited an article by Dr. Peter Barss in the Journal of Trauma entitled 'Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts', a piece that received an Ig Nobel Prize, the award granted annually by Harvard's editors of the 'Annals of Improbable Research' in recognition of research that "cannot or should not be replicated."

While coconuts have fractured skulls in places like Papua New Guinea, there seems to be little hard evidence that they kill a substantial number of unaware amblers on an annual basis. Still, the paths of Palau Besar are lined with rows of coconut trees, and while I'm not gonna negotiate them replete with crash helmet, I'm ready to dodge, duck and dive at any time...